Paul Schrader Quotes

I always conceive a piece as a different set of challenges.

When you make movies, it's such an important period of time, when you look back at each one of them. You want to be able to say that you did something that was a challenge and that changed you.

Every solution of a problem is a new problem.

Creating is no problem - problem solving is not creating.

In all the creative work that I have done, what has come first is a problem, a puzzle involving discomfort.

I enjoy logic and logic puzzles. And filmmaking is one fun logic puzzle that you gotta win.

Because there is something difficult and destructive involved, there must be something creative involved as well. Relating to that creative aspect is the point.

Like many of my fellow entrepreneurs, I didn't create Hearsay Social with my co-founder Steve Garrity because it would be fun and easy, but because we're at our best when faced with enormous challenges.

I like working with writer-directors because you can solve problems right there.

Every single thing you see on-screen came out of somebody's creativity. It doesn't exist. Nature didn't deliver it to us. Everything had to be dreamed.

Every cinematographer I worked with had his own way of solving problems.

Devising a mechanism is a lot like solving a puzzle - and gives you the same kind of kick.

I want a painting to be difficult to do. The more obstacles, obstructions, problems - if they don't overwhelm - the better. I would like to feel that I am involved at any stage of the painting with all its moments, not just this 'now' moment where a superficial grace is so available.

It's not just about acting. I love film, I'm a director now, I love writing, I love producing, I love having a company that makes films and to be prolific and have a place to put all the ideas that are constantly bubbling up inside of me and that don't let me sleep at night.

I've been directing more and more the last few years, I find it an enjoyable challenge.

Anytime you put a challenge out there, people come up with a creative solution on the software side.

Creating something is all about problem-solving.

The best work for creative folks on the team is when the problem is big and the solution escapes everyone.

A director makes only one movie in his life. Then he breaks it into pieces and makes it again.

Working on being creative in the TV world is endless. It never stops. It's a challenge that never disappears.

Whatever creativity is, it is in part a solution to a problem.

When I'm making stuff, the thing that excites me most is not the result, but the process and trying to do something I've never done before.

If I had written something, and I had written myself into a corner, I didn't abandon it. Because I remembered: There's always more.

Producing is the hardest of the three because there is almost no closure. Every time you solve a problem, another one pops up. Directing is second, and acting is the most fun.

Creative work is incredibly difficult, and that is where the tests lie.